Science Fiction

by

Matthew David Goodwin, Ilan Stavans

• LAST MODIFIED: 24 July 2024
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199913701-0281

Introduction

Science fiction is often described as a genre of imaginative literature in which the events of the narrative are scientifically possible, as opposed to events that are magical, supernatural, or fantastical. Though not the most common genre historically used by US Latino writers, it has still had a strong presence. It has generally been overshadowed, though, by magical realism, a type of fantastic story in which magical events are seamlessly intertwined with a realistic narrative. The twenty-first century has, nevertheless, brought with it a burgeoning interest in Latino science fiction, as its creation has increased along with a body of scholarship that is recovering and critically analyzing past science fiction works. Science fiction is a large field and contains multiple subgenres (alien encounters, outer space voyages, dystopian fiction, and so on) and Latino writers have made use of them all. Furthermore, despite its designation as a “fiction,” science fiction is a multimedia field, and Latinos have been engaged in creating not only science fiction literature, but also comics, film, and television. Latino science fiction, as does much of science fiction, often takes current trends and extrapolates them into the future, and the themes that appear are of particular interest to Latino communities including migration, colonialism, and racism; Spanglish and code-switching; and encounters between Latinos and other ethnic groups. Latino writers are finding that science fiction is one of the most dynamic ways to imagine a Latino future.

General Overviews

The study of Latino science fiction joins a more general turn in science fiction studies toward the study of science fiction written by specific ethnic groups and nationalities. At the same time, the study of Latino science fiction is part of a growing movement in Latino studies to give closer attention to genres such as detective fiction, young-adult fiction, and comics. The earliest scholarly essays that directly dealt with the subject of Latino science fiction were to some degree concerned with the question of recovering and/or reconstructing a tradition of Latino science fiction. At issue are the history and scope of Latino science fiction and the recovery of works that may have been read as magical realism or fantasy when they were published (“retrolabeling” in the term of Rachel Haywood Ferreira). A good place for a researcher to start is Maguire 2013, an introduction to the field which charts the genre up to Junot Díaz’s novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (New York: Riverhead, 2007) in which science fiction plays a central role. Catherine S. Ramírez has also written a number of essays on the subject. Influenced by Afrofuturist scholarship, Ramírez coined the term “Chicanafuturism” (see Ramírez 2004 under Art and Music) in order to frame her study of Marion C. Martinez’s religious sculptures, which are constructed of old computer parts. Both this essay and Ramírez 2008 create a thread of a tradition, citing examples such as Luis Valdez’s 1967 play Los Vendidos (Alexandria, VA: Alexander Street Press, 2004) which she describes as “one of the earliest examples of Chicanafuturism” (p. 189). Goodwin 2021 offers a review of the various frameworks and legacies in the field as a whole, as well as offering an analysis of the particular figure of the space alien. The edited volume Merla-Watson, et al. 2017 provides an introduction to the wider genre of speculative fiction which also contains numerous essays focused on Latino science fiction. A broad and comparative study which examines Latino science fiction alongside other works of multiethnic science fiction can be found in Sanchez-Taylor 2021. Two Latinx fiction anthologies, Goodwin 2020 and Hernandez, et al. 2021, contain key works of Latino science fiction as well as newer works. Duncan, et al. 2022 and Durändal Stormcrow 2022 each focus on a particular group, Chicanos and Puerto Ricans respectively.

• Duncan, Scott Russell, Jenny Irizary, and Armando Rendón, eds. El Porvenir, ¡Ya!: Citlalzazanilli Mexicatl. Berkeley, CA: Somos en escrito Literary Foundation Press, 2022.

  A Chicano science fiction anthology that expresses the variety of Chicano experiences through futuristic visions, space travel, time travel, and apocalyptic Aztlán.

• Durändal Stormcrow, Eïrïc R., ed. Fricción cuántica: Antología de ciencia ficción desde Puerto Rico y su diáspora. San Juan, Puerto Rico: Gnomo, 2022.

  Anthology of Puerto Rican science fiction which also contains a number of essays on science fiction. This substantial collection gives a sign of the great number of contemporary science fiction writers in Puerto Rico.

• Goodwin, Matthew David, ed. Latinx Rising: An Anthology of Latinx Science Fiction and Fantasy. Columbus, OH: Mad Creek Books, 2020.

  A foundational anthology of science fiction and fantasy by Latinos living in the United States which offers readers a sense of the history and the future of Latino science fiction.

• Goodwin, Matthew David. The Latinx Files: Race, Migration, and Space Aliens. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2021.

  DOI: 10.36019/9781978815148

  A book-length study of Latino science fiction, focusing on the figure of the space alien, demonstrating that the space alien in Latino science fiction is most fruitfully thought of as a Multitude rather than an Other.

• Hernandez, Alex, Matthew David Goodwin, and Sarah Rafael García, eds. Speculative Fiction for Dreamers: A Latinx Anthology. Columbus, OH: Mad Creek Books, 2021.

  An anthology of science fiction and fantasy written by Latinos living in the United States which focuses on new and up-and-coming writers. The collection contains fiction, poetry, graphic narratives, and short drama.

• Maguire, Emily A. “Science Fiction.” In The Routledge Companion to Latino/a Literature. Edited by Suzanne Bost and Frances R. Aparicio, 351–360. London: Routledge, 2013.

  This essay contests the notion that there is no tradition of Latino science fiction by offering brief descriptions of a number of works from the 1970s to the present. Maguire not only looks at Chicano science fiction, which is abundant, but also science fiction by non-Chicano Latinos such as Alex Rivera.

• Merla-Watson, Cathryn. “Latinofuturism.” In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latina and Latino Literature. Edited by Louis G. Mendoza. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.

  A broad overview of the field of Latinofuturism and speculative fiction and art. The article, in dialogue with the larger field of Latinx Studies, examines the variety of speculative genres and their particular genealogies, emphasizing the history and political aspects of these works. Some added information on the genres of horror and the Gothic.

• Merla-Watson, Cathryn Josefina, and B. V. Olguín, eds. Altermundos: Latin@ Speculative Literature, Film, and Popular Culture. Los Angeles: UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press, 2017.

  This edited volume collates scholarship on Latino speculative aesthetics, and archives new speculative literature, popular art, and protest. A foundational text in the academic study of Latino science fiction, its Introduction is often cited as developing key concepts in the field.

• Ramírez, Catherine S. “Afrofuturism/Chicanafuturism: Fictive Kin.” Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies 33.1 (Spring 2008): 185–194.

  DOI: 10.1525/azt.2008.33.1.185

  In this partly autobiographical essay, Ramírez discusses her own interest in science fiction both as a fan and as a teacher, and gives brief overviews of her previous two essays on Chicanafuturism.

• Sanchez-Taylor, Joy. Diverse Future: Science Fiction and Authors of Color. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2021.

  DOI: 10.26818/9780814214732

  A first of its kind comparative study that examines multiethnic science fiction through themes such as space travel, race and genetics, the apocalypse, and Indigenous science.